and then she slept, a little girl overwrought by the
demands of a great enthusiasm.

Five o'clock in the afternoon. At this hour every
pkce in the kboratory was occupied. Experiments were
in progress at sixty benches. The air was indescribable,
thick, grey, like a spider's web. The ventilators were un-
able to deal effectively with all the vapours and odours
produced by this industrious generation of chemical
students. On every side was a boiling, a hissing, a pop-
ping, a bubbling—evaporations into fumes of green,
blue and red. All the Bunsen burners were alight and
numerous water baths, oil baths and solutions were
boiling in fkt dishes set on high tripods. A fantastic
glass vegetation had sprung up on the tables—carbbys,
flasks, intricate tubing, retorts, pipettes, burettes,
test tubes, beakers. Beside each student Gattermann's
tome lay open. Gattermann the all-knowing, the
faithful adviser, according to whom all experiments are
conducted. Gattermann looked like a war-scarred veteran,
covered with spots, bums and acid corrosions, his pages
well thumbed at the tricky parts and scarcely touched at
the theoretical parts. The stone floor of the kboratory
which Kranzle, the kboratory servant, had cleaned in
the morning, was wet and filthy with a mixture of
slippery fluids and sand strewed with fragments of
glass* Kranzle was a zealous, good-natured fellow, with
a fondness for tips.

At the third bench there was a quarrel. There always
was trouble at that bench. The student Strehl took up
too much room, got in his colleagues' light and mono-
polised everything, the water taps, the gksses, the
room, the servant. He was perspiring at every,pore and
muttering under his brfcath remarks about women
students which Helena Willfuer, working opposite "him,
was intended to overhear. She was beat over her

30 /.